The wagons ahead stretched for miles. Everyone was all going to the same place, California, to seek a fortune that they could only dream for, gold. The California gold rush lasted from 1848-1850. During this time people from all over the world were all going to California to seek a fortune of gold. However, not everyone was able to make this dream come true because there were many difficult challenges to deal with in order to make it to California. During the California gold rush many immigrants found challenges on their way to California, there was an abundance of people going to California, and there was a large crime rate. Pioneers faced many challenges on their travels to California. The main problem faced by pioneers was starvation. About …show more content…
Starvation was caused from food going bad, being over supplied where they had to leave most of it behind, or under supplied where they didn’t have enough to eat (Over the Trails to California 7). Another major problem faced by the pioneers was the Sierra Desert. The Sierra Desert was about a quarter of the journey and it lead into mountains which is where most of people discarded their unneeded items. When someone had too many supplies they would have to discard them in order to make it up the mountains but if they were too low on supplies they could die of starvation or other causes. Most people died from the diseases that spread all around the pioneers (Over the Trails to California 7). When travelling by land to California, forty-niners bought many supplies to help with them getting their fortune, however, these supplies became too heavy to take therefore …show more content…
When the news about the gold rush was released to the world, people from Asia, Europe, Hawaii, and North and South America came over to California. The population quickly grew from 180 citizens to over 90,000 people. This then caused less gold findings causing more crime than there was in the beginning of the gold rush (Getting to California 6-7). Since there were more people in California looking for gold, the rarity of gold findings decreased as more people found more gold. In 1848, about 32,000 people came to California. In 1849, about 44,000 more people arrived to California (Problems for Gold Miners-The Gold Rush 4). So the immigrants travelled to California in large numbers that increased per year. The population of California grew from a small 180 people to over 90,000 people practically overnight (Getting to California 6-7). With this many people coming, the population can easily grow. This is how the abundance of people affected the gold
John Augustus Sutter was born in Baden, Switzerland on the 15th of February in 1803. Sutter is the reason for the California Gold Rush that began in 1848. Sutter had a fort called “New Helvetia” beginning in 1842 that ended quickly in 1844. A man named James Wilson Marshall was planning to build John Sutter a water-powered sawmill, when he came across flakes of gold in the American River near Coloma, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This Discovery happened on January 24th in 1848 causing the town to have no till afterwards. Once the discovery got out it was soon the center for merchants and miners. In John Sutter’s earlier years, he claimed to have had a military background being a captain in the Royal Swiss Guard to the French King.
The government participated in a great "push" to get its citizens to move to west. At first few people moved to the west, but this changed when gold was discovered in California in 1848. This caused a "gold rush" to the west coast which consisted of many prospectors seeking to find their fortunes in the gold mines of California. Many traveled to the west coast, however few actually found their fortunes.
Disease was always something on the emigrants mind when traveling the Oregon trail, because they never knew when a friend or themselves would succumb to it. According to the Frontier trails, an estimated 50,000 people died from disease (Underwood). The emigrants of the oregon trail had to live through the fact knowing disease could strike at any time and claim another victim. It was hard for the colonists to deal with disease, they had a hard time telling which one it was and often required loads of work to help heal them. According to the National Parks Service, the most common disease were cholera, dysentery, mountain fever, measles, food poisoning, smallpox, and pneumonia (Death and Danger along the Trails). As one can see, the colonists had a hard time figuring out what beast they were fighting, and how to fight it, which is why they ost so many lives. As one can see, the colonists had a hard time figuring out what beast they were fighting, and how to fight it, which is why they lost so many
Gold Rush 1849 was the reason for such a frenzy. It caused people to migrate to California from near and far too dig for gold from the river. According to the film, The Chinese Exclusion Act Explained: US History Review, “This attracted Chinese entrepreneurs to try to make it rich”. The Chinese was one of the cultures that was one of the cultures that left their home to find a better life for their families. However, after being greeted in the United States, they were discriminated against them since they were feared by the Europeans. Racism towards the Chinese immigrant caused a lot of hardship on them in the Western civilization, enabling them to enter or exit without returning to the States.
The expansion to the western lands of the United States created a number of benefits for the economy and its citizens. With the expansion to these lands, Americans gained the added land area along with the resources that the land possessed. One of these valuable resources that attracted Americans to the West was gold. During the mid-1800s, gold was discovered in northeastern California. This inspired a movement of many Americans to leave their homes to settle in the West in the hope of discovering gold. This gold rush attracted primarily single men into the uncharted western lands.
As most folks do, when I think of the term “Gold Rush”, it conjures up images of the West! Images of cowboys and crusty old miners ruthlessly and savagely staking their claims. Immigrants coming by boat, folks on foot, horseback, and covered wagon form all over the US to rape and pillage the land that was newly acquired from Mexico through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo… California. But let me tell you about a gold rush of another kind, in another place, even more significant. It was the actual first documented discovery of gold in the United States! Fifty years earlier…in North Carolina!
When the Gold Rush started they didnt have a law regarding property rights so anyone could go and look for gold wherever they wanted. The Gold Rush was very hit and miss. You have people like my great great great grandpa who got lots of gold and then losses it on the journey home and then you have people that where very wealthy from the Gold Rush. The Gold Rush actually had a big part in why california was called the "golden state". "The population of San Francisco exploded from perhaps about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 full-time residents by 1850"
The gold rush era in the United States began in California in 1848 and ended around the year 1900. (Yukon) Although miners searched for the valuable metal into the twentieth century, the Klondike gold rush, which was around 1897 till 1900, was the last of some of the major rushes to occur. People had flocked to the upper part of the Yukon River in hopes of striking it rich. Many people had traveled from the Canadian and American regions to the center of the Klondike gold rush to fulfill their dreams of one day being rich with gold. (Place 48) The Yukon River Valley of Canada and Alaska was once peaceful and isolated, wild animals and a few white trappers and people. The miners had wandered north after the California fields gave out and fulfilled their dreams on a few dollars in gold they managed to eke out of their mines. This loss of gold in California had made the peaceful Alaska into a rampage of greed and envy that would never make Alaska the same.
During the late 1840's California did not show much promise or security. It had an insecure political future, its economic capabilities were severely limited and it had a population, other than Indians, of less than three thousand people. People at this time had no idea of what was to come of the sleepy state in the coming years. California would help boost the nation's economy and entice immigrants to journey to this mystical and promising land in hopes of striking it rich.
The things that changed throughout the gold rush. “ Many californians who lived through the gold rush experienced a number of economic changes” (Mcgill,12). The merchants thought if they raised the prices of the supplies the miners would need, they would make more money. Also as more people arrived to California, crime had increased (Saffer, 1). The thieves wanted some gold and didn't want to dig for it or they just wanted to steal some to have more money. The forty-niners didn’t like that and since there wasn't any police officers, they had to make their own Justice system and for the people who got caught stealing had consequences. Another thing was there was many people
The California Gold Rush in 1849 was the catalyst event for the state that earned them a spot in the U.S. union in 1850. This was not the first gold rush in North America; however, it was one of the most important gold rush events. The story of how the gold was discovered and the stories of the 49ers are well known. Men leaving their families in the East and heading West in hopes of striking it rich are the stories that most of us heard about when we learn about the California Gold Rush. Professors and scholars over the last two decades from various fields of study have taken a deeper look into the Gold Rush phenomena. When California joined the Union in 1850 it helped the U.S. expand westward just as most Americans had intended to do. The event of the Gold Rush can be viewed as important because it led to a national railroad. It also provided the correct circumstances for successful entrepreneurship, capitalism, and the development modern industrialization. The event also had a major influence on agriculture, economics, and politics.
The Gold Rush was one of the most influential times in California History. During the four years from 1848-1852, 400,000 new people flooded into the state. People from many countries and social classes moved to California, and many of them settled in San Francisco. All this diversity in one place created a very interesting dynamic. California during the Gold Rush, was a place of colliding ideals. The 49ers came from a very structured kind of life to a place where one was free to make up her own rules.
The California gold rush began on January 24, 1848, in the Sacramento Valley. The first sight of gold nuggets found during the Gold Rush was located in the American River, by James W. Marshall. After the news of the gold became known the tidings spread quickly. Information about Jame's discovery caused thousands of immigrants to migrate, changing the nation forever. Citizens living in California were especially provoked with this, due to their homes being intruded on. Before the gold was first found in 1848 the estimated population was less than 1,000 people. Within one year the nations' population had jumped tremendously to approximately 100,000 people. California officially became recognized as a state in 1850, and after two more years had passed almost 250,000 immigrants, businessmen, families, and miners, had traveled to California in hopes of discovering gold. By 1850 more than 300,000 gold questers assailed California.
Gold was discovered in California in the late 1840s which brought thousands of immigrants who hoped to become rich to the land. After the gold rush was over, migrants needed stable work. The Chinese in particular predominately worked on the construction of railroads. Over the course of six years, Chinese immigrants played a significant role in the completion of the Transcontinental railroad in the United States.
California started its statehood unlike any other state before or after it succession. California entered the nation as a free state in 1950, during the time of the Gold Rush. From the Gold Rush came the term “California Dream” which is the “psychological motivation to gain fast wealth or fame in a new land” (Manhattan-Institute.org). From the time of the Gold Rush up until recent years, California has been associated with obtaining fast wealth and fame. This encouraged people from all over the world to come to California in hopes of striking it rich, just as people continued to do up until the 90's. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 immensely accelerated certain changes that had been in the making for decades. For instance, California was already filled with different races and cultures, but when the Gold Rush struck, California became an international frontier where people from every continent were joining together. “California also set an important precedent for civil societies with diverse populations” (page 121). By 1850, California was flooded with over 300,000 people seeking gold. The fact that California has always attracted so many different people has created a land filled with many languages, cultures, and social customs. “The arrival and departure of thousan...